I Am the Moon, the Moon Is Me
by planet p
Summary: Story Repost! AU; William has a visit from his daughter. Sequel to Before the Moon.


**I Am the Moon, the Moon Is Me** by planet p

**Disclaimer** I don't own _the Pretender_ or any of its characters.

* * *

_Story Repost! Because I liked the argument =(_

_Plus, I think that older people should interact with younger people, and vice versa._

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The hall was empty as he walked to the front door. He pulled the door open before he could think to stop himself.

A young woman stood at the bottom of the three concrete steps. Raines didn't move.

"Hello daddy."

* * *

The child, four or five, lay asleep on the couch in the lounge room with the gray and floral carpet.

Agatha had not come to answer questions, and so she did not, and neither did he ask. "Will you have her?" she asked, without prompt.

Raines frowned.

"She's four." She did not look at him. "Truth be told, four and a half."

He stepped away from the sideboard. "Go," he said, to spare her the awkwardness, and she did not ask to see the child before he let her out and closed the door behind her.

* * *

The child was upset when she awoke. She had on an upset face. She searched through the rooms. It was in the kitchen that she found any signs of life.

Raines frowned but she did not change her upset face, except now it was an angry face. He thought how much like Ethan she was. "William," he offered, at a loss for conversation.

"Brolly," the child said, glum and forceful all at the same time. She watched him with her little lizard eyes that didn't miss a thing and angry so.

He decided that they should have dinner out and thought that a diner he knew vaguely would be nice.

* * *

The child was put to school. She did not like it, of course, and she had told him that she vehemently detested institution, and he, not knowing what was to be said to that, had said nothing, and thought that she could take of it what she would.

When it was time for school to be out, he drove her to the diner to wait until it was time for him to get off work at five. She was not happy again.

He took her to a bookstore that was all shelves and books and no way at all to tell what one was looking at but by reading the titles on the spines or asking at the counter at the front of the light gray walled, dark gray carpeted and artificial lighted, glass-fronted store. He did not ask to be shown to the children's literature and picture books and so spent more hours than he would have admitted. The impatient child grew tiresome of following him from aisle to aisle and all of that idle standing. She sat down and did not get up even to move or to follow him.

He finally put away his reading glasses, strode along an aisle to the front desk – at which the child followed – and asked if the store stocked any children books at all, to which the man replied that no, they did not.

The child followed him out of the store and up the pavement to where the car was parked.

He bought her a bright picture book. That little smile that the child got when she saw that he had managed a parking ticket in his absent-mindedness did not improve his mood.

* * *

The child stood and watched the security monitors at the motor registry office where he had to pay the fine for his ticket and would not be seated despite the ridiculous queue, and she had taken the number he needed to present to the service person at the desk when it was finally his turn.

He managed fairly to explain to the woman that he had given his number to the child and that she was busy trying to embarrass him and that he had this fine to pay. The woman gave him a look but made no further enquiries despite the few glances she added in the direction of the child.

When did he learn to drive a motor vehicle, the child asked once seated safely back in the car with her seat belt on, and did he know all of the rules, because they changed?

He said nothing to that and told her that she talked too much and she ought to be careful that she didn't lose her voice because she had overworked it without compensation, a pay rise say.

The child did not find him amusing and turned a nasty look on him, and he said to her, that distracting the driver could get them all killed, and she wasn't trying to distract the driver was she?

* * *

The child found a picture in a frame and the woman had blonde hair and the child wanted hair like that and why did the woman have hair like that and who was she, and then the beady lizard-eyed stare.

She was his wife, he said, her grandmother, and she was from Iceland, and he told her too, to put the picture back where she had found it. Had he asked her to re-arrange things, and was she a qualified decorator? By way of response, she did not reply.

They watched sport on the television and she fell asleep and he did not wake her. It would make her upset, and that would give him a headache.

* * *

The woman watched the two from where she worked at the counter. They came in almost every night at 6 o'clock.

"I want a new book," the child said stubbornly from her plate, without looking up.

"You must shut your mouth when you're eating," the old man told her. "It isn't polite to talk when you're eating, Brolly."

The child immediately pushed her plate away. In that case, she was finished eating.

She was bright for her age and she was sick of looking at the same book with the same pictures and the same three or four lettered words day after day.

"Finish up your dinner."

"I'm not hungry."

"Are you going to pay for it?"

Brolly said nothing.

"Finish your dinner."

* * *

_As always, thanks for reading._


End file.
